[SOC] Giving Up On English

[Jan Clute]

I love that piece (or those pieces, I've seen parts of it all over). It
fascinates me how we and the Brits can speak so similarly (compared with
some other languages, where mutual intelligibility can be rare any distance
apart). I just came from reading alt.usage.english where folks from various
places were trying to describe their pronunciations of "dour" in a way that
ALL of them would understand (since all of their dialects were different).
They kept running into the sorts of inconsistencies described in your piece.
Love it. Thanks. Jan N0AAA #389

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hank Kohl K8DD" <k8dd at arrl.net>
To: "Second Class Operators' Club" <soc at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 8:31 PM
Subject: [SOC] Giving Up On English


>
>
> OK, I decided to give up on English. This is why:
>
> 1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
> 2) The farm was used to produce produce.
> 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
> 4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
> 5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
> 6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
> 7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
> present the present.
> 8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
> 9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
> 10) I did not object to the object.
> 11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
> 12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
> 13) They were too close to the door to close it.
> 14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
> 15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
> 16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
> 17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
> 18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
> 19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
> 20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
> 21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
>
> Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant
> nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English
> muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
> Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
> We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find
> that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig
> is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write
> but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If
> the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One
> goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Isn't it
> crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of
> odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
> If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats
> vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the
> English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
>
> In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital, ship
> by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that
> smell? How about this? You park in the driveway and drive on the
> parkway? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
> wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique
> lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
> in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm
> goes off by going on.
>
> English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
> creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
> That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
> lights are out, they are invisible.
>
> And, why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?
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